Take my Hand and We'll Rule the World
by remembrallvsthesilence
Summary: Giving the Black Widow her hand and helping the Avengers get back to their own dimension provides Evelynn Taft with the salvation she didn't know she'd ever get. OCxBlack Widow. Femslash. Don't worry, I'll understand if you can't deal with OCs. Femslash. Contains multiple Ocs, but most only feature briefly.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: OCXNatasha. Femslash. If you don't like OCs, I completely understand if you have to exit out of this story. If you're fine with them, then I welcome you to this new mini-series of mine, complete with all the little drabbles I write about my OC, Evelynn Taft, and the Avengers.

Things you should know: Evelynn is from another dimension. She has a power, which will be explained further in. Hopefully she isn't a Mary Sue, and if she is, please give me suggestions on how to improve my characterization. Also, I apologize if anyone is OOC, I'm still working on that.

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Follow

They all knew that it would come down to this. Ever since the Avengers had passed through that portal Doom had created to an alternate dimension, they had been working on a way to get back. They had landed in the middle of a central government facility, had been taken hostage by soldiers, and had to find someone who had spoken English and explain what had happened.

Natasha and Clint found 'the boys downstairs' two days later. Until then, the team had seen normal soldiers and scientists. This dimension put more emphasis on the further exploration of sciences, but they hadn't seen any of the experiments, blocked from all labs immediately, much to the dismay of Bruce and the anger of Tony.

Natasha had found the staircase leading into the basement after a debriefing involving all the equivalents of heads of countries in this dimension. She had pulled Clint away and they descended. The blonde with the wings was the first to find them, and Natasha nearly took his head off the second he popped out of the dark hallway at the bottom of the stairs. But he just grinned and shouted over his shoulder that they had company.

"Wait till Topher sees you guys." He'd said, walking backwards. "He's gonna flip. Not that he's not already crazy, but he hates outsiders. It's cool though, Evelynn and Michele would've stopped you if they thought you'd try to kill us."

Natasha and Clint shared a look, but followed him down a hallway and into a larger room. It was drafty and dark, the only lights dim and high overhead. There were consoles everywhere, bordering the room, and a central one, larger than the rest, with another man bent over the far side.

"Hey, hey, what the hell?" The man said, straightening. He was dressed in a hoodie and jeans, a far cry from the rest of the military personnel they'd first seen. "Who are they, Aaron? Why are they in my lab? You know I don't-"

"Like it when new people get into your stuff, yeah, I got it Topher. But these are the new guys, you know, the ones from another dimension Delta Sciences have been talking about for the past few days? "

The sandy haired man glared at Aaron before muttering something about no one listening to him, and went back to work. "Where's Michele, anyway? She was supposed to be out of testing by now." He glanced to the side, where Aaron had sat on the edge of the console and gestured for Natasha and Clint to sit opposite them.

"Ya got your days mixed again, Topher. It's experimentation day for Michele, she won't be back for few more hours at least. But Evelynn caught me upstairs, said she'd be down if she could get out of Vega shift supplying tonight."

Topher rolled his eyes and fiddled with a few spare wires. "When have the guys upstairs ever let her get out of Vega shift?" he grumbled, before slanting a glance at Natasha and Clint. "What're you two doing down here, anyway? Come to stare at the freaks?"

Natasha furrowed her brow. Clint raised his hands in surrender. "We're just checking everything out, man. We've got no problem with any of you."

"Humph. Yeah, right."

"Why do you call yourselves freaks?" Natasha asked.

Aaron grinned at her again, but something unsettled Natasha. It didn't reach his eyes. "Cause we're not exactly like all the others, girlfriend," Aaron said, before gripping the edge of his tee-shirt and pulling it over his head. He sat there for a second, getting used to the cold before…

Before wings extended to either side of him, three feet in width and six in length. They were dark brown, contrasting with the tan of his skin and blending into the dark of Topher's lab easily. Natasha felt more than saw Clint's jaw drop, and her own hands flexed, eyes wide. That was not at all what she had expected. It almost made up for him calling her girlfriend. Almost.

Topher broke the stunned silence with a muttered, "I hope you know that I'll get Michele to stab you with her sword if you leave your dirty clothes around my lab again."

Aaron laughed again at that, and now the bitter tone in his voice was more evident. It set Natasha's teeth on edge and made Clint's fingers twitch towards his bow. Aaron rolled his eyes. "Oh god, no. I'm not making that mistake again. I couldn't feel safe for a whole week. She's like a freaking ninja with that thing." He turned to them. "Welp, I think that's about all there is to show you guys down here right now. You know," He looked askance at them for a moment, "if you two were on our side, I wouldn't hesitate to show Evelynn and Michele to you. They'd be pretty excited to have more people to help us." Throughout this speech, he's been leading them up the stairs again, ignoring Topher's complaints, and now opened the door for them, checking that the hall outside was clear.

"What do you mean?" Natasha asked. He blinked at her. "Don't you know?"

Silence.

"Right, well," Aaron ran his hand through his hair. "We're the boys downstairs, okay? We're the ones no one wants to talk about. We're the ones you shouldn't mention to anyone you met, and we're the ones that are going to actually help you get out of here."

Clint looked about as confused as Natasha felt. "What about all the others? They-"

"Aren't who they say they are, man. They don't want to help you- they want to use you. These guys, they use _everyone_. We aren't people to them; we're livestock to be experimented on."

"Why doesn't anyone stop them?"

Aaron laughed again, a hollow sound. "You don't think people haven't tried? Hell, last country that tried to take over and liberate the people got destroyed within months. It's not safe here, kiddos, and I'm- _we_- are the evidence of that." He paused, glanced around, and stepped closer. "Look, Topher is trying as hard as he can to get you all out of here. But… But if he can't, take some advice from me." He paused, looking saddened in a different way this time, like he was remembering something lost. "It's advice Evelynn told me when I first joined the government."

"Run as far and as fast as you can," Another voice said from behind Clint. They whirled, a knife already in Natasha's palm and Clint's bow drawn. An Asian woman with black hair and dark eyes stood behind them. She was dressed in a white jump suit, a black tank top underneath with the label "Delta-Vega Shift". Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her eyes were hard.

Natasha felt something in her chest clench.

"You never did listen very well," the woman added, stepping forward to stand beside the blonde.

"Aw, Lynn, you know I learn by doing." Aaron threw his arm around her shoulders and grinned at them. "Actions are louder than words and all that, right?"

"So it would seem," Lynn replied softly, before nodding to Natasha and Clint. "Hello. I'm Evelynn, as I'm sure the boys have told you?"

"I'm Hawkeye," Clint said. "That's Black Widow. What exactly is happening here?"

Evelynn smiled sadly. "Something you really shouldn't ask about. But Aaron's right; you should take the advice."

Bruce was the one who found the files on one of the consoles that night. He burst into the rooms the team had been given, cheeks pinked and heart monitor beeping.

"Calm down there, buddy," Tony said, standing by the windows with Steve. "We don't want you hulking out on our gracious hosts, now do we?"

"Actually, that might not be such a bad idea," Clint said, looking over Bruce's shoulder at the files in his hands. "Look at this."

'This' turned out to be worse that they had thought. The files contained accounts of the war, where people had been taken prisoner because they had wanted to escape the country. There were files about people like Aaron, who had their DNA messed with to give them wings or tails, people like Topher who had been taken from their homes after testing showed that they were geniuses, made to work for the government and never let back out again. The military was filled with people trained from birth to kill, and kill until the government ordered them to stop, people who were treated like animals and experimented on.

The files about testing and supplying were the worst, Natasha found.

Testing was to put all the subjects into a maze, give them weapons, and tell them they had to kill everyone else to get out alive. Then, the winner would be taken into the lab and have their brains scanned and picked apart. The science teams would install chips into the subject's skulls, to implant orders from headquarters into their minds, to control all of them.

Michele Durham was one listed Tester. She was one of the best, wielding a sword and coming back from ten separate tests alive. She'd gone MIA for two days during the last one, though, and was on reserves now. Natasha supposed that was how Michele became one of the downstairs crew.

Supplying was different. Supplying meant that the subject had their DNA played with, changing major factors of their genetic make-up and then sent to test. Some were like Aaron, had extra limbs for testing, or had extraordinary mental powers to solve tests. There was definitely something more to supplying, but they didn't find it until Natasha came up with Evelynn's file.

Evelynn Taft had been working for the government and pushing for military reforms when she'd been picked to be a Supplier. She'd been taken from the apartment she had shared with her girlfriend of the time, Sierra Turner. Sierra turner was found months later, dead from a gunshot to the back of her head. Bruce looked positively sickened when he speculated that they most likely had made Evelynn watch, as a test of her mental capabilities as a Supplier. She had, apparently, pasted, and was taken in to Experimentation; a branch of the government that was truly too powerful, ant controlled the facility that they were currently located in.

They had turned Evelynn Taft into the ultimate supply. She had been given a power unheard of until then. Her very blood was changed. She could be hurt and yet keep going. They had researched it for months. She had something classified as regeneration. She'd been shot, beaten to death, stabbed, drowned, burned, and buried alive. She would die for a maximum of five hours before gasping her way back to life, as if it had never happened.

Evelynn now supplied all of the blood the government needed. For tests, experiments, supplies for the subjects or the military, it didn't matter. She could just regrow it, so they drained Evelynn's blood every other night on the Vega Shift.

Natasha checked her watch. The shift was just ending.

Topher had managed to open a portal back to the Avenger's dimension two hours earlier, it turned out when Steve and Thor returned to the others, but had to make sure he could keep it open for them all. It was ready now, but he'd had one condition.

They had to take Michele, Topher, Evelynn and Aaron back with them.

Natasha didn't really see the problem with it, but as Steve explained, that meant they had to find everyone. Aaron had already been dispatched by Topher to track down Michele Durham, but Evelynn Taft had been called back to Vega Shift Supply unexpectedly, and the Avengers were going to have to find her.

Aaron had drawn up a map of the Vega Shift Supply wing of the facility for them, marking the rooms that were most likely to be used for Evelynn's blood transfer. They spilt up, Clint and Tony moving to the west of the wing through the halls, Thor and Steve taking center rooms, and Natasha and Bruce crawling through the air vents of the left rooms.

Tony and Clint, surprisingly, were the first to get caught. Natasha had been sure it would be Thor, but apparently none of the scientists wore purple in the labs, and Clint was easily spotted. They really needed to talk about his color choices at the next team meeting.

The alarm bells were ringing, red lights flashing when Natasha and Bruce dropped into Evelynn's room. It was a typical off white room, smaller than expected, and filled with clear tanks, about the size of an oxygen tank. Half of them were already filled with scarlet blood, and in a tub off to the side of the room, Evelynn lay, needles puncturing all up and down the inside of her arms. She wore no coat, only her dark tank top and her jumpsuit's pants, and her hair was tied into a bun. Her eyes were closed, and her face did not twitch when Bruce pulled the needles out of her left arm.

Natasha, have long since taken out all the scientists that tried to stop them (five, two in the hallway outside, three checking various monitors in Evelynn's room, helped him with her other arm, and slapped Evelynn's cheek lightly. Bruce stopped her by pushing a button on one of the monitors, stopping an IV of clear liquid flowing into Evelynn's veins. Groggily, the Asian woman's eyes opened.

"What-" She said, struggling to sit up. Bruce helped her, while Natasha turned to the door. "We're getting you out of here, Miss Taft. Topher has opened the portal back to our dimension, and you are coming with us. We need you to wake up now."

"I'm dead weight with these drugs in me," Evelynn muttered, before focusing 9with extreme difficulty) on the gun in Natasha's right hand. "Here shoot me," she added, straightening and pulling her tank top's collar out of the way.

"What-"

"When I regenerate, it'll get all the drugs out of my system. It'll take a maximum of two minutes to come back from a bullet to the base of my neck."

Natasha shot. Evelynn fell, gurgled for a moment, then lay still. Bruce knelt over her, while Natasha turned her attention to the agents running down the hall from the right. She could hear Tony's repulsors in the distance, the clang of Thor's hammer from the other directions, and she grinned.

The Avengers were in top form, even in a different dimension.

When Evelynn sat up (one minute and thirty-two seconds later, Natasha noted with satisfaction), she coughed into her hand for a moment, before handing Bruce a slightly bloody bullet.

"Merry Christmas," she croaked, surging to her feet and slamming her fist into the last agent's nose. "Here," Evelynn added, holding out a hand for one of Natasha's knives. Natasha threw it to her, and Evelynn jammed it into the agent's stomach. "There. Between those ribs shouldn't kill him." A pause, as they ran down the hallway, crashed down the stairs and almost tripped over Clint on the way down. "I think."

"Great, good, the gang's all here, awesome; can we get out of here now?" Tony said, glaring at Topher. Topher, for his credit, looked unimpressed, a knife in his left fist, the fingers of his right hand flying over the console. "All right, all right, here we go," and the rest of his sentence was swallowed as the roar of the portal rose above the din. Michele Durham a tall, thin African American woman, hair in dreadlocks, and a sword strapped to her back- was one of the first to go through, supporting Aaron, whose hair was ruffled and had one broken wing. Tony and Bruce came after, followed by Topher and Thor. Steve hung back, eyes on the door, and motioned for Natasha and Evelynn to go through.

At the portal, Evelynn hesitated, just for a second. Natasha huffed, but she didn't move. The Russian could see what was going through her mind; she was leaving all her family, all her work, her whole _world_ behind, to follow some strangers into another dimension. How could she not hesitate?

Come on," Natasha hissed, stepping halfway through the portal. Wind whistled through her hair, deafening, but she squinted and focused on Evelynn. The woman paused a second longer.

"There's nothing here for you," Natasha told her. She could see the scars on Evelynn's collarbone, at the crook of her elbows, and her chest clenched again, painfully. "You didn't deserve to have to live in this place. We're here for you. We'll help you. _I _will help you."

Evelynn's eyes held hers, solemn.

"You just have to take my hand."

Pause.

The Asian woman's fingers were cooler than Natasha expected.

Natasha Romanov never regretted the day Evelyn Taft decided to take her hand and follow her through the portal.


	2. Chapter 2

Bridge

(_Follow_ from Evelynn's point of view)

New people came in every day, Evelynn knew. She watched through upstairs windows, as the new ones, so fresh and young, eager anticipation on their faces, walked of their own free will into the proverbial lion's den. She saw, from the back entrance (a low garage, where she escaped to and hid in a corner when things became too much to handle), the ones like herself, the ones that were taken from their homes.

Every time she saw these people, fighting the hands that held them, crying and shaking, she heard again, resounding in her ears, Sierra's screams and pleading, for them to let Evelynn go, take Sierra instead, just leave her girlfriend alone.

Evelynn puts her fist through one of the walls of the maze she's navigating, and catches a startled eye peering through the hole at her. Another contender. Michele would be finding a way around the wall by now, coming after the others with her trusted sword. Evelynn tries a different approach. She bends to the eye, which backs away slightly, and puts her finger to her lips. Then, wildly, she points to the eye and grins, wide, flashing her canines. The eye disappears and a cry followed by running footsteps resounds from the other side of the wall, and Evelynn sighed.

The new ones were so easy.

She waits until the buzzer starts going off in earnest. Each time the buzzer goes off, another contestant is declared dead. There are ten contestants, and she is one of the last four.

The buzzer sounds twice. It is only her and one other. However, before Evelynn is able to find the other, she is yanked backward by her hair, her neck arching and a hand covering her mouth. Before she is able to do more than slam an elbow back into the body behind her, a knife cuts into her throat, and Evelynn's eyesight tunnels alarmingly quickly.

Pain ruptures through her, and Evelynn's last sight before the dark closes in is a man, burly and short, lumbering away. A bloodied knife dangles limply in his fingers.

Evelynn gasps her way back to life about a minute later, and the man whips around to stare, horrified, as her supposed corpse rises unsteadily to its feet. (Just because Evelynn can come back to life after being murdered doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like a _bitch_ when she's killed).

She leaps after the man, who runs now, a smart choice, but Evelynn has been in too many tests to be stopped now, and she catches up deftly, snatching at his shoulders and sending them both to the ground. He struggles, but Evelynn gets two hands around the man's massive neck and slams his forehead into the tiles beneath them. He stills, stunned for the moment.

The two of them are close to the exit, Evelynn realizes, and is very glad she's caught him now. Evelynn doesn't care to find out what they would do to a girl who wasn't the winner of a test but survived anyway. Besides, the doors won't open until everyone save the winner is dead.

She flips the man, rips the knife out of his hands. She presses the flat of the blade against his fleshy neck, the edge under his chin. His eyes widen and he stops suddenly, frozen. The man goes to speak-and that's when Evelynn slits his throat.

She isn't proud of what she does, Evelynn thinks, after she's gotten out and been examined and was released until Vega Shift Supplying, but she does what she has to in order to survive, and that, as of yet, is the only thing she can do.

Only suddenly, she finds it is not.

Because now there are new people, not just from her world, but from another _dimension_, and they don't know the horror they have stumbled upon.

She hears they're a team of heroes, called the Avengers. She glimpses a tall, broad-shouldered man with long blonde hair and an enormous hammer in his huge fist, and Evelynn secretly thanks any gods out there that she has never run into him in the tests. The man looks like he would pack one hell of a punch, and Evelynn might be able to heal, but still, ouch.

Evelynn doesn't expect to meet any of them, at all. She's much too much of a liability, and Evelynn has heard enough to know that the higher-ups are looking for a way to start testing the dark haired one with the glasses, inquiring about the blood of the blonde leader, probably for Supplying. She'd be able to warn them, stop the tragedy of the past from repeating itself, if they weren't watching Evelynn all day, every day.

She is never alone; there are eyes always on her.

But Evelynn walks to the stairway down to Topher's lab one day, and she sees Aaron (beautiful, kind, _stupid_ Aaron; of course he's make friends with them, the man had no sense of self-preservation) standing in the entrance, talking to two of the new people. One is a man, a bow strapped to his back, sturdy looking. The other is a woman, obviously trained, lithe and deadly, judging from her stance.

Evelynn gets there in time to hear Aaron mention the advice she had given him when they had met in the hallway the first day he was here, two years after she was taken. (Two years after Sierra died, but Evelynn tries not to think of that, or the pain might not be something she's able to bear.) She finishes his sentence for him.

"Run as far and as fast as you can," Evelynn says, and watched the two newcomers react. She hardens her eyes at their actions, but Evelynn is glad they can defend themselves. If Topher's crazy plan to get these "Avengers" out fails, they're going to need all the fighting skills they can get to survive here.

Evelynn steps around the woman, avoiding looking in her eyes at all costs (the depth, the understanding in her eyes reminds Evelynn of Sierra, and the pain wells in her throat so high she thinks she's going to choke), and instead adds "You never did listen very well."

Aaron, predictably, takes that comment and runs with it, and Evelynn is just barely paying attention to the conversation or what she's saying to these people, "Hawkeye and Black Widow", but she's warned them, and although that should be enough, the woman's eyes make something inside her chest clench and those emotions well in Evelynn's chest again.

She goes on with her day, making sure Aaron's wings don't get cramped, getting Topher some food when he forgets, and checking up on how Michele is dealing with experimentation today.

Vega Shift sneaks up on Evelynn suddenly, but she makes it to the lab in enough time that no one is sent out to return with her forcefully, a lesson Evelynn has learned time and again.

She gets in her tub, lets the scientists plug needles into her, and falls gently to sleep under the effect of the drugs. Usually, they have no effect on her, drugs, poisons, even alcohol, but it's been a tiring day, and her defenses aren't up well enough. In the back of her mind, Evelynn might even be thankful for the void she is allowed to slip into.

She blinks back to consciousness an indiscernible amount of time later, with the dark haired glasses wearing Avenger leaning over her, and the redhead at the door, shooting at some of the agents employed here. They explain that they are getting her out of here, and Evelynn wants to scream at them, as more and more agents close in, to save themselves, that Evelynn will be of no use to them and that she's no better than the men that the woman is mowing down now. But instead Evelynn asks to be shot, and gasps her way back to life to help Black Widow finish them off.

They run then, and Evelynn hasn't felt hope like this in a long time, and when the man in the iron suit asks if they can leave and Topher opens the portal, Evelynn feels like crying.

But she stops, conflict swelling in her abdomen, when she gets to the portal. Black Widow is waiting for her, hand held out, impatience and understanding warring on her features.

What does Evelynn do? She has to get out, but to leave all these people behind? Can she do that, is she brave enough? Is it the right thing to do?

Is it what Sierra would have done?

She shakes the thought away. Sierra would not love Evelynn now, not after what Evelynn has done, and has been forced to do. Evelynn is strong enough now, or maybe cold-hearted enough now to realize that Sierra would have died here a long time ago.

It still hurts, though, a hollow pang in her chest where Evelynn's heart used to be, when the woman says, "There's nothing here for you."

Evelynn stares at her, the understanding on her features and the depth of her eyes, which is not like Sierra's at all, now that Evelynn thinks about it. It's deeper, darker, and something that might just resemble a lifeline Evelynn can hang onto. As long at the Black Widow just keeps on talking to her.

Evelynn is not disappointed.

"You didn't deserve to have to live in this place," she says, and fear and anger war in Evelynn. How does this new woman know what she's done, what she deserves or not?

"We're here for you." The woman continues, eyes only for Evelynn's face, and that makes her slightly uncomfortable. This woman knows too much about her, even though she knows nothing at all. Evelynn's walls start to come up, memories fading, trust crumbling. She can almost feel her heart chilling.

"We'll help you. _I_ will help you."

Evelynn's walls collapse.

She takes the Black Widow's hand and doesn't look back.

The bridge between the worlds closes behind them, and Evelynn lands, her front crushed to the other woman's, Black Widow's back hitting the ground with a dull thud. They are in a large, round room, with windows from floor to ceiling on one side. There's a bar to one side, table and chairs, a couch facing some contraption that looks vaguely like a console. (Evelynn will soon discover it's called a television, but she doesn't know that yet.)

She stumbles to her feet, takes a moment to regain her breath and balance, looks around to find the rest of them (the blonde leader made it out behind them, and Evelynn feels something in her chest-it takes her a second to realize she's glad he's not dead) staggering to their feet, looking different degrees of happy and relieved.

The Black Widow stand fluidly to her feet (Evelynn doesn't know that this will mesmerize her in the months, the _years_ to come), glances around as well.

Her eyes return to Evelynn's, and Evelynn raises her chin in return. (Her hair is coming out of her ponytail, falling around her face and over her shoulders. Evelynn thinks she sees Natasha's eyes flicker to the waves over the next few weeks, but tells herself she's being stupid and sentimental.)

"You are the…Avengers, yes?" She's awkward now, adrenaline fleeing, but she tries her best to keep her composure.

"Yes," the redhead nods.

"You are a good team. Good people." Evelynn says, and suddenly there's a lump in her throat.

Well. This has never happened before.

Of course, Evelynn has never met people with powers like herself, nor has she ever traveled to different dimensions.

"Thank you, Black Widow," Evelynn says at last, softly. She watches Topher begin arguing with the man in the iron suit. When she returns her eyes to the woman's face, the redhead's own eyes have softened slightly.

"My name is Natasha. Natasha Romanov."

Something warms the cavity where Evelynn's heart used to be. Maybe there's something for her to live (not survive, like she had been doing, just to spite those scientists) for here.

"Thank you, Natasha Romanov. My name is Evelynn Taft."


	3. Chapter 3

Phantom

Evelynn sometimes feels fingers traces down her spine. It's stupid, really, and she tells herself so, but she can't get the feeling of warm hands on her shoulders to go away.

The fingers are long and flexible, nimble as they trace the contours of Evelynn's face, and she can't turn away, because they follow her everywhere. They aren't dangerous, just strange, because Evelynn _knows_ they are not really there, but she feels them anyway. The fingers are gentle, and if they were real, Evelynn would call their caresses loving.

It's been years since she was touched that way and Evelynn is starting to lose her mind.

It's been months, closer to a year, since she and the rest of "the boys downstairs" were saved by the Avengers. Evelynn stayed, surprisingly, with the team, and was offered a place amongst them. Here, she feels welcome. Here is a place filled with people like her.

Here is home. Here is family, in a strange, unconventional way. (And wasn't that the understatement of the century, Evelynn mused once, but them she felt the fingers curl around her hands and she stopped thinking for a while.)

It doesn't get better; these ghostly touches don't go away until Natasha notices.

By then, it had been going on for weeks, maybe months, Evelynn doesn't know; she lost track of the days, keeping time with the caresses to her face, fingers trailing up her arms, hands on her shoulders.

The others don't notice. When she visits Topher and Aaron and even Michele, they don't seem to think anything is wrong. Evelynn supposes they were just used to seeing her tired and gaunt.

The Avengers too, seemed not to think anything was wrong about bags under the eyes, or bumping into objects like you hadn't slept a wink the previous night.

Evelynn doesn't say anything to either group.

She's had enough time away from her dimension to be alright with this new society, new world, but she knows her old friends haven't been adjusting quite so well. So Evelynn keeps her trap shut around them, because they obviously have their own problems to deal with (apparent in the way Topher grumbles more so than usual, how Aaron is snippy and then apologetic, how Michele puts her sword through a wall and leaves a ragged hole when she comes back from being gawked at in the grocery store).

The Avengers are too simply too busy to deal with much more than they already are. Evelynn has found that while not _as_ dangerous as her home, this new world is certainly damn close. The city needs saving almost every day, and when the team gets home, everyone is tired and hungry, so Evelynn shuts up about the nightmares she's having and feeling of hands on her body and makes dinner instead.

She never mentions anything, and yet Natasha knows.

Of course she does, Evelynn reflects, days, weeks, months later. How could the great Black Widow not know?

It starts with a gentleness Evelynn is unused to appearing, just for a second, in Natasha's eyes one day. It's the morning, long after Evelynn woke suppressing a scream, but soon after she had decided it was safe to come out without looking crazy. (Not that she isn't, a little voice says in the back of her head, and she wants to tell it to shut up, but then invisible fingers slid around her wrists, and she stays quiet.) Evelynn is making coffee at the stove, and she fumbles the bag of grounds unexpectedly. It's only a small motion, so small that if it were anyone other than Natasha in the room with her it would go unnoticed, but of course it _is_ Natasha in the room with her, and so her fumble in noticed.

No words are said between the two for a long, long moment, in which Evelynn thinks about fleeing, but never really considers the option, before Natasha gently (oh, so, so gently, Evelynn didn't even know she could be gentle) takes the grounds form numb fingers and nudges her toward the table.

The next time is only slightly bigger, at least that's what normal people would say, but to Evelynn, it's huge. Unfathomable.

The Avengers have gotten back from a mission and Evelynn is on the couch in the central room. She's hesitant to call it a living room, because it's _so big_, so she just goes about without giving it a title. Its Tony's place anyway, let him do what he wants with it.

The others have mostly disappeared; Tony left for his workshop, most likely, Bruce to his lab. Clint looked dead on his feet, so he was probably already snoring upstairs, and Thor had grabbed a bow of poptarts and disappeared to whereabouts unknown.

Steve passes the couch, looking a beat as Evelynn feels, and pats her on the shoulder, smiling tiredly. She manages a twitch of her lips in return, and he disappears down the hallway.

Evelynn, stupidly, forgets that Natasha is there at all. The Black Widow went into the kitchen, possible for a glass of water, and Evelynn kicked off her boots, stripped off her gloves, and pulled her top over her head. Underneath, she had on another layer of clothing; Evelynn always does this, just in case something burns or melts or whatever the hell they run into that week does away with her top layer, she has some other form of protection.

Today, it's her old Delta-Vega Shift tank top; Evelynn supposes she felt a bit sentimental that morning, after dreaming of her days back in Delta Sciences.

Maybe sentimental wasn't the right word.

She lays back, legs stretching out across the floor, head lolling back, arms akimbo. Evelynn feels the fingers come back a moment later; they're never there in battle, only coming again when she doesn't have her attention occupied well enough.

The fingers sweep up Evelynn's spine, trace her mouth and brow, trail, wisp-like, over her hip and thigh. Evelynn lets them, doesn't care enough about her own mental health anymore to tell herself she doesn't feel them-but then the fingers curl around her throat, and Evelynn fights not to panic. The fingers clamp down, tighter and tighter, but when she brings her hands up, Evelynn can tell there's nothing there.

But oh, oh, she's loosing air, fighting not to cough out pleas and shrieks, but she _can_ _feel the oxygen leaving her, and what if she can't come back from being killed by her own mind, and ohmygodI'mgoingtodie-_

But then a hand, a real hand, with real fingers and real nails, clasps her own. The hand is much larger than hers, but still very graceful as it turns her fingers over, curls them up into fists and places them in her lap. Evelynn can feel the redness rising to her skin where her own fingers scrabbled frantically.

Evelynn looks up into deep, green eyes, and feels the phantom hands disappear.

(Nothing happens after that. Natasha goes to her room, and Evelynn goes to her room. Evelynn takes off her tank top and curls up under her quilt and buries her head in her hands. But the fingers don't come back until the following morning and when she sees the Black Widow they aren't so bad.)

The fingers are still there, for the longest time. The phantom hands try to hurt her, choke her twice more. Once, in the shower, and Evelynn hadn't been sure what to do, so she turned the cold up as high as it would go and held her head underwater after that until her vision started to tunnel. In fact, she thinks she might have killed herself there for a minute, and feels a stab of hope that maybe all Evelynn needs to do to get rid of her ghosts is kill herself every few days.

Then, once more in the kitchen, when she's making a sandwich after training. This time, Tony is there with her; well, not with her, his back it turned and he's staring at his tablet, but Evelynn focuses on his back, on the hunch of his shoulders, and eventually, the felling passes.

It's only after the hands try to- to _touch_ her that everything comes to a head, so to speak. (Evelynn would've winced at her word choice, but she had been too busy trying not to cry out.)

She's asleep this time, and the one thing the fingers never did was try to touch her in sleep. It was Evelynn's one reprieve, and one she cherished greatly.

She wakes up quickly; years of training have made Evelynn jumpy and a light sleeper. The fingers slip up the inside of her leg from her ankle. She feels frozen for a long time. In all of Evelynn's life, even at the Institution, she had never been forced into any sexual relationship; she had never been touched that way.

Rape is such a crass word, Evelynn muses wildly, as the fingers flit over her thigh and move inward. She's struggling now, in earnest, and her feet and hands are becoming tangled in the bedding. She's not _actually_ being raped; it's all inside her mind, so why does she feel so violated?

Evelynn mush had cried out, just a little, she realizes, when she throws the quilts away and is caught in a pair over very real arms. She didn't even register the door opening.

The skin of the arms that hold her softly, very softly, is pale and smooth. The arms themselves are long and lean, pure muscle and strength. A Chest is pressed up against her back; Evelynn is curled into the person behind her, no question about it. Whoever has her isn't letting go.

And of course, it's Natasha.

Evelynn stares into Natasha's face (she looks pained, almost, but hard and angry as well; angry at Evelynn? Why? Oh- was she mad Evelynn woke her up crying out?) for a short moment. The Natasha gives her back a short of nudge, closer to the other woman, and Evelynn collapses.

She grips the other woman's shoulders, head buried just above Natasha's collarbone. She closes her eyes, draws her legs up so she's all but pooled in Natasha's lap, feels the other's arms tighten, pull her closer.

She cries.

For Aaron, And Topher, and Michele and how hard it is for them to adjust, for Steve, and Clint, and Bruce, and Tony, and Natasha, and how tired all over her teammates are. Evelynn cries for herself and her broken heart, cries like she never did, never had the chance to after Sierra died. Evelynn cries for loves lost and confusing feelings, and being saved, and loving someone else when she thought she would never love again.

Natasha holds on, as tight as ever, all through it. She never lets so, and that makes Evelynn sob once more, hiccup, and breath out for a long time.

Evelynn is scared now that it's done. The fingers are gone, replaced with Natasha's warmth, but Evelynn has never let anyone see her cry. Not even Sierra saw tears on her cheeks, ever. Evelynn always said crying never helped anything, and it didn't. In fact, it slowed things down, distracted you when you could be coming up with a solution to your problems.

But Evelynn needed this; still needs Natasha's warmth and Natasha's arms around her and Natasha's hair brushing her ears and cheeks, and Natasha's warm breath on her neck. She needs Natasha, and now that her little breakdown is done, now that Evelynn is ruined in her eyes, Natasha will never come back.

No one ever does. If they try, they will dies, of that Evelynn is sure.

Evelynn gathers her courage then. It's no use delaying the inevitable, she knows. So Evelynn goes to wrench herself away from Natasha. She gets ready to chill her heart again, ignore her thoughts, and maybe even be kicked out of the family she has grown to love.

Evelynn is stopped by firm hands interlocked at the small of her back. Even with how trained and strong she is Evelynn can't break out of the Black Widow's grip.

Natasha doesn't look revolted or angry or tired anymore. She looks sad, so sad, and Evelynn doesn't want that for her, never wants that. But she can't remove herself, no doubt the source of Natasha's grief, not without struggling against her friend. So Evelynn just stays still and prays that Natasha will have the sense to stop all of this.

Natasha, however, very much has a mind of her own, and instead of releasing Evelynn, presses her back into bed. Evelynn stiffens, because there is no way in hell she's going to let Natasha finish the job the phantom fingers started (and now that she's let loose, Evelynn highly doubts the phantom will return), but Natasha's eyes cloud at that, but her fingers don't loosen. She shifts, sliding onto her side and pressing close. They lay like that, for a long, long time. Evelynn settles, eventually, letting her muscles relax. Her eyes slip closed, and sleep is fueled with the knowledge that the phantom hands will never return.

Natasha doesn't speak for the longest time. She lies with Evelynn, arms wrapped tightly around her, and listens to the smaller woman's breathing. When Natasha is sure Evelynn is well on her way to sleep, she shifts again. She pulls Evelynn closer, tucks Evelynn's head under her chin, mouth warm by Evelynn's ear as she says, _"Trust me."_

And Evelynn, for the second time in her life, has the courage to trust Natasha.


	4. Chapter 4

Warm

Evelynn is having a very, very bad day. In fact, her day has been so awful, she takes to calling it her Bad Day, capitals needed, around lunch time.

It seems, at first, that the Asian woman is just having a bout of bad luck in the morning. It's near Christmastime, which means that more and more agents are signing up for time off, so she set her alarm up to wake her at six to help out with all the extra paperwork, but it had malfunctioned (which probably explained where Tony had gone for spare parts that week) and woken her at five instead. She went back to sleep only to wake up twenty minutes late and Thor had made the untimely discovery that there were other foods to eat than just poptarts, and Evelynn hadn't been able to eat breakfast. She barely got into the shower before jumping straight out again about five seconds later; Clint always used up all the hot water unless you got up earlier than him. Hence why most of the Avengers were early risers (Evelynn didn't care what Steve said about being army trained or what Natasha had to say about Russian spies-she knew just as well as they did that that was just a cover up).

So by the time Evelynn has to go out to get a taxi (because of course today has to be the day Tony holes himself up in the garage and won't let anyone but Steve in), she's tired, damp, and irritated. Clint and Steve have miraculously disappeared from her wrath, Tony is still in the garage playing that godawful music at a godawful hour of the morning, and this godawful winter weather has the Asian's boots soaked through in about half a second, and she hasn't even caught a glimpse of Bruce, and Natasha is on a mission, and who the hell ever said this time of the year was amazing?

By this time, around eight thirty, Evelynn's "bad luck" theory turns into the theory that some higher power is toying with her (which prompts not-so-pleasant thoughts of Thor's little brother coming back) just to see her squirm. Having actually had quite a bit of experience in this field, Evelynn resolves that her morning will not be bad at all after this, and the weather isn't really that bad, is it, and she still has a bit of time to get to S.H.I.E.L.D. to see if she can help and then maybe just enough time to swing by the arts store and get her present to Steve sorted out. She decides all of this very resolutely, and that seems to be the reason that everything goes wrong.

The dark haired woman doesn't actually come into contact with a cab until she's walked halfway up what must be the longest (okay, maybe second longest) street in New York. She's got snow-sludge in her boots, water in her eyes, she can't feel her hands or her feet, she's shivering, and the tip of her nose is so red, she's starting to believe she's turning into Rudolph. The cab that Evelynn hails smells like cat piss and she does contemplate getting right back out again, but the blessed heater actually works and the feeling in her fingers begins to return, so she stays. It doesn't stop the woman from smelling the sleeve of her coat the moment she's paid her fare and yep-cat piss smell.

So she ditches the coat at the entrance to the building, and the interns working today must be those eco-conscious health nut rabid animal rights activists that some higher up insisted Fury had to employ in order to make it look like S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't biased (Evelynn couldn't really see the problem-the agency employed a Russian spy, a Norse god, and an interdimensional Asian government test subject-what more could the sponsors want?), because the heater is turned completely off, and they had to think that their coworkers were invincible. Well, okay, so technically Thor and Evelynn and Steve were and Bruce, Tony, Clint and Natasha could survive, and Evelynn had always suspected that Nick Fury wasn't all the way human, but that was beside the point. The point in having a heating system installed somewhere is to _use it_.

And as it turns out, after about half an hour of running around trying to get to the right people to see if they need any help, Evelynn isn't actually needed at all and is asked to go home. (Ordered more like it, but then she would have said "You can't order me to get out, I'm leaving!", and that would have been just childish. Or you know, Tony-ish.)

Her coat is still damp by the door and one of the normal, sane employees they keep around offers to get it dry-cleaned for the woman, who gratefully accepts, only now she's nothing to wear out, and it's started to snow. It falls and lands wetly in her hair as Evelynn runs from awning to awning, scrabbling at her pocket only to realize, oh, look, she's left her cell at the Tower. There is snow in the road and no taxi is driving by and she's wet and hasn't had lunch or breakfast and she's tired and it's bloody two in the afternoon and Evelynn just wants this day to end.

Thankfully, the Asian finds a nearby diner that's open and ducks inside. It isn't the best place to be, but it's better than outside, so she sits at the counter and peels off her absolutely soaked sweater. She drops five dollars on the counter and orders what has to be one of the worst cups of coffee she's ever tasted and isn't even that warm, but it's better than nothing (and so goes Evelynn's life today, apparently), so the woman takes what she can get.

And then, because Evelynn has had a revelation that the universe, does, in fact, hate her and everything about her, some sleaze starts thinking it's a good idea to hit on her. She leans her elbows on the counter, stars at the coffee in her cup, and finally just stands up and leaves. Evelynn's just glad she's smooth enough to grab her sweater instead of having to go back for it. It's around five now, she's spent a long time in that diner trying to dry out (to no eval), and now she's hungry, tired, and has spent way too much time being damp for it to be healthy. Evelynn spends the rest of the walk to the Tower thinking of all the ways she could have killed the man in the diner, what she would have used and what best way to cover it up. (The Asian stopped wondering if she was crazy long ago. Now she's just glad she has the rest of the Avengers to lean on.)

It takes Evelynn another two hours to walk back, hunched up and chilled with the wind. She tracks in mud and leafs and snow, can't even articulate an apology for Jarvis (who might just be the Asian's very-best-friend right about now, because the AI turns up the heating a full ten degrees as soon as the cameras register the woman's figure and body temperature in the doorway), and ends up just taking off for her room on the third floor as fast as Evelynn's legs can carry her. From the flash of red in her preferential vision, Evelynn concludes that Natasha is, in fact, alive and well, even if she hasn't seen the Russian in about two and a half weeks (the spy's mission had run longer than expected). Although the woman doesn't stop to say hello, Evelynn hopes that Natasha is all right and decides, somewhat hazily, to check in tomorrow morning. If, that is, she can tear herself away from her mattress.

She's got her shirt and scarf off, her socks lost somewhere near the door, and her pants unbuttoned and unzipped before Evelynn is halfway across the room. She slips by her desk, pulling her pants off, tugging off her gloves as an afterthought, and struggling into sleep pants. Before Evelynn collapses into bed, she briefly entertains the thought of hunting up a top from her dresser, but nixes the idea and opts for just rooting around of the floor until she feels the edge of her suitcase. Evelynn had gotten back from a trip to Hong Kong a week ago and hadn't bothered to unpack just yet. Her fingers find the hem of a tank top, and Evelynn pulls the thing over her head, and just as a cherry on top of her terrible ice cream sundae of a godawful day, the Asian somehow manages to get tangled in the straps for two or three minutes. Once she's finally out of that deathtrap, Evelynn falls into bed, pulls up her covers, and shuts her eyes.

And proceeds to freeze her goddamn ass off. Apparently, even the heating inside the Tower isn't enough to get feeling back into Evelynn's, well, anything. She doesn't have skin now; she's just made up of goose bumps.

However, despite these conditions, she manages to drift for a moment (or maybe an hour, as the clock informs her) before Evelynn's bedroom door creaks open, and light is shed for a second across her bed, before vanishing. The light is replaced by the sound of soft footsteps. Evelynn knows she should be worried, be up and fighting right now, but she just so _tired. _So she just rolls a bit more onto her side. The glint of red hair relaxes Evelynn like nothing else, and she murmurs something unintelligible for a moment. The Asian can hear a soft chuckle by her bedside before a calm hand with long, warm fingers places itself on her forehead.

"Hello to you too," Natasha whispers, voice like velvet against Evelynn's skin in the dark. "I take it you missed me?"

"Mmhhf," Evelynn responds.

"Or maybe you didn't. You know, it _is_ rather rude to sprint passed your best friend you haven't seen in half a month without saying hello."

"Uughh." Evelynn says.

Natasha's fingers are really very warm. Her tone is playful, but her fingers are still warming Evelynn's skin, so the smaller woman really can't complain. "I'm starting to think you don't really want to see me, Lynn."

"Oh, shut up and get over here, will you?" Evelynn snaps, lifts the blanket slightly. "It's been a bloody godawful Bad Day, I'm tired, you're warm, and more importantly you're _back_, which means you need sleep. So be quiet and sleep with me." Then the woman rolls her eyes at the redhead's slightly devious expression. "And no, not like _that_, God Natasha, you're almost as bad as Tony."

"I resent that," Natasha replies, sliding into bed beside Evelynn. "I'm certainly nowhere near Tony material. Clint, maybe, but not Tony."

"Whatever, you're warm," the other mutters, scooting closer. The redhead's arms wrap deftly around her waist, fingers skimming through and winding their way into her hair, and Evelynn's eyes almost roll back in her head in delight. This moment, these five seconds, are the best thing that has happened to her all day.

"Mmm," Natasha hums, contentedly, and Evelynn almost starts purring like a cat when she rubs the Asian's back in deep, slow circles. "You really had that bad of a day?"

Evelynn breaths out a "yeah" against Natasha's collarbone, ignoring the way their legs tangle up together. Natasha ducked her head and buries her nose in Evelynn's hair, and the smaller woman tries to reaffirm her idea that this is just what Best Friends do, they cuddle.

In bed.

Under the covers.

Yes, they do too!

Natasha tugs on the Asian's arm, manhandling her with ease and care, until the dark haired woman in all but pressed flush against her friend's chest. Natasha shifts onto her side, pulls the covers tighter around the two, and curves around the shorter, protective, comforting, until Natasha is all around Evelynn, and escape would be futile, if even wanted.

"Must be because I wasn't here," Natasha says, but before Evelynn can retort, she tucks the dark haired woman's head under her own chin and settles, still wrapped all around her friend. There is comfort in the silence now, and Evelynn can feel every inch of her skin now, because every inch of her skin is somehow in contact with her redheaded friend, and the woman can't even be bothered to try to deny her statement.

If it's easier for Evelynn to fall asleep now, well, that's just her business, isn't it.


	5. Chapter 5

**1: **Hot, Steamy kiss

Hands clutch at her waist, too tightly, but Evelynn honestly couldn't be bothered to care. She's far too hyper, too focused on that _amazing_ thing Natasha's doing with her tongue. The redhead is pressed up against the brick and mortar foundation of the non-descript safe house they're staying at, her Asian girlfriend plastered along her front, no space between them. Her long-fingered hands push against the other's back, trying to meld their bodies together. The night is cold and foggy, but neither one cares very much; they've been so long parted –Natasha had a mission that took her _three goddamn months_, and that was before Evelynn got shipped off to fucking India for medical research for another _six_- that the only thing Natasha does when Evelynn shivers more violently is press her closer and finally –_finally!_ - slot her burning, welcoming mouth, open and waiting, over Evelynn's.

**2:** Cheek Kiss

They aren't, traditionally, very affectionate in public. That's not to say that they are keeping their relationship a secret; they just agreed that it would be better for everyone, including strangers around them, if they kept their hands to themselves. No one likes being reminded that they're single, especially by a couple who can't get out of each other's personal space. And that's a very important subject to both of them, personal space. Natasha has been a tool, a weapon to be used for so long that she's very content being in her own little bubble. Evelynn is very similar to her that way. When she arrived, the Asian woman didn't know anything but the cold, clinical, _cruel_ touch of the doctors who had confined her in the first place. (She still flinches away from Natasha sometimes.) So really, it isn't that hard to imagine her surprise when Evelynn grins, ecstatic, and presses forward over the restaurant table to peck her on the cheek, still clutching her birthday gift in one hand.

**3:** Nose Kiss

She wakes up early. Earlier than Natasha, usually. (Sometimes, there are nights when the redhead doesn't ever sleep-the nightmares are too much.) Normally, Evelynn slides out of bed, sometimes clothed and sometimes not, smiles at the other's sleeping face (so much more relaxed than the conscious version), and heads out for a jog. There are mornings, though, like the one that this day starts out with. These mornings have been happening, she's noticed, more and more frequently, and a tiny swirl of fear curls itself in her chest. Evelynn wakes in a tangle of limbs and sharp joints. Arms press down harshly on her shoulders and ribs, legs wrapped, spider-like, around her own. Natasha's face is twisted in her sleep, her breathing irregular. Her fingers knot in Evelynn's long hair, sometimes pulling hard enough for Evelynn to arch her head back to relieve the pain in her scalp. Most of the time, though, she's able to wake the Russian with relative ease, shifting closer and pressing cool fingers to a heated cheek. (She always gets a soft kiss and a murmured apology for her troubles.) She tries again today, wrenching her head back down from where the other's hands had pulled at her hair brutally enough that her chin was pointed to the ceiling, and shifting closer. Her lungs are feeling considerably more restricted than strictly comfortable and her legs are completely immoveable, but she gets closer and manages to brush her lips across the tip of Natasha's nose. Hands immediately close around Evelynn's shoulders, flipping her flat on her back, shoving her violently into the bed. A knee connects with her stomach and the breath in the Asian woman's lungs rushes out. She knows that bruises will be disappearing under the cloth of her pajamas. Instinct kicks in then, regardless of whom she is fighting, and she gets one hand wrapped around the thin white throat above her. The hands on her are mirroring hers now, and the knee in her stomach grinds in severely. When dark, surprised eyes stare into disoriented, alarmed green ones, Evelynn feels that curl of fear harden and drop like dead weight to the pit of her stomach. Nothing can be said now to make this better. (It's only a downhill slope from here on out.)

**4:** Forehead Kiss

Evelynn, it turns out, can fall asleep almost anywhere, if she's tired enough. Natasha suspects that's because she feels safer here than she ever did in the world she came from (and doesn't that just send a proud tingle down to Russian's spine). Needless to say, Natasha's gotten used to carrying Evelynn's dead weight to bed, because of course the Asian is hard to wake when she gets like this. (Natasha knows that this is more probable to happen after strings of sleepless, fearful nights, when tensions run high and all the muscles in Evelynn's body won't stop clenching for anything. She's horrible like this, if Natasha were to be honest; she won't accept help from anyone, moves back into her single room, the one that's been empty since the start of their relationship. She'll find the smaller woman up in the night; hear her pacing back and forth in her room, but always silently. She never says a word. Natasha supposes that they both need to get their sleeping habits checked out by a SHEILD doctor.)Natasha never complains in the morning, even if it gets frustrating sometimes so much that she grips at her short hair and paces the room, quiet enough that she doesn't wake the Asian. She _worries_; unfortunately, there's no other word for it. This _isn't healthy_, this thing they both do. They need help, she knows it, but in the end Natasha just promises herself, like she's done so many times before, that they'll talk about it in the morning and leans down to place a simple kiss (barely a touch of skin, there and gone in an instant) on the younger woman's forehead. They'll talk about it in the morning_, they will_.

**5:** Firm Kiss

No one is fearless. It's true. Even the Avengers get scared sometimes; even the Avengers have scars and memories they'd like to forget. More than most, actually. It isn't unheard of for people to need contact when they get scared, and Natasha has found that Evelynn fits quite snugly in this department. It's most likely because the young woman had never gotten enough intimate, friendly contact when she was back in her own world. Sometimes it feels as if Evelynn is trying to make up for lost time. Natasha never mentions it. Instead, when the memories of experiments visibly become too much for her to handle, when her eyes are suspiciously watery and her hands tremble, Natasha will pull Evelynn close with an arm around her waist and press their mouths together, firm and unmoving. She tries to ground the other woman, keep her in the here and now with only the connection they have through their lips, press all the words she can't find the will or the way to say into Evelynn's skin. She tries to make Evelynn see that she is, at last, safe.

**6:** Gentle Peck

It's not often that Evelynn loses all of Natasha's attention. Not that she wants it all the time, to be honest. She doesn't think even she could stand that piercing gaze for so long. But when they speak with each other, when they're close, she can count on Natasha's focus being entirely on the conversation. It's a bit intense, really, and it's scared Evelynn more than once. It's strange, then, when Natasha gets distant in a conversation, distracted, obviously concentration powerfully on another subject. Evelynn doesn't mind though, and if it's important (she can tell when Natasha furrows her brows. When that happens, it can't be very pressing, because when she's serious, Natasha's face is wiped clean of absolutely all expression.), she'll go on her way quietly, ready to pick up the conversation at a later date. However, it's nice to know that all she really needs to do to get that penetrating gaze back on her is give Natasha a tiny kiss on the cheek.

**7: **Romantic Kiss

It's their first kiss, the first time she connects her lips with Evelynn's, and Natasha is going to be sure to make this count. She doesn't know for sure if Evelynn wants this, wants _her_, but Natasha just has to kiss her. Just this once, to get it out of her system. To finally _know, _to know exactly what that inviting mouth tastes like, to know what Evelynn's body and curves feel like pressed fully against her own, to know what that waterfall of hair feels like clenched in her fists. Turns out, that mouth tastes like the orange juice Evelynn was drinking this morning, buried under the tang of minty toothpaste. This kiss lacks the finesse Natasha usually finds crucial in undercover missions or any of the long-gone relationships of the past. But it makes up for it in feeling, and it's only when she feels the other woman relax from her stiff, surprised posture that the redhead relaxes too, melting the kiss into something soft, buttery and sweet. Natasha feeds both of their hearts with this kiss, gets addicted to the taste of Evelynn's skin, the smell of her lavender laundry detergent and strawberry shampoo. She likes that the other woman doesn't wear any makeup; she's found that it often gets in the way. Her hands come up, one anchoring itself at Evelynn's waist, the other sliding along her (smooth, supple, she wonders what kind of lotion Evelynn uses) cheek and twines her long fingers in that long black hair. Evelynn makes a muted sound into the kiss, arms wrapping around the other's neck, lips parting, and just as Natasha takes that for what it is (and invitation to slip in and twine their tongues together) she knows this is going to last a (hopefully) long, long time.

**8:** Eyelid Kiss

Evelynn tells herself she isn't creepy for doing this. Plenty of people sit at their loved one's side when they're sick or injured. Of course, Natasha only has a few broken ribs and a bump on the head, something the assassin can get over fast enough, but it doesn't stop Evelynn form worrying. Besides, she really is trying to get the hang of this whole 'normal person' thing, and this ritual seems to be a part of it. Even if it makes her uncomfortable to sit quietly and watch Natasha sleep. And so what if she's gotten weird, almost smitten looks from the nurses here, as if they think it's endearing that Evelynn's waiting for her friend to wake up. Really, it's very distracting. She should have them reported, for all they know they could be disturbing some highly-important-SHEILD-related-thoughts. Or something like that. But the looks don't stop, Evelynn doesn't stop showing up every day that she can after work, and Natasha doesn't stop falling asleep because of the drugs they're giving her, so in the end Evelynn just presses her mouth lightly against Natasha's eyelids, one by one, and leaves silently at the end of visiting hours.

**9:** Jawline Kiss

Evelynn isn't one for fleeting intimacy. When she's close to someone, be it with a comforting hug or a passionate kiss, she gives it all her focus, pushes her emotions into physically affection. She's not good with words, never has been, so relying on touch to speak for her is the only way she really knows how to deal with things. When she's in a rush, Evelynn still can't leave a conversation without acknowledging the other person with something, be it a pat on the arm or (In Tony's case, more often than not) a flick to the back of the head. With Natasha, Evelynn almost doesn't realize she's gotten into the habit of standing on her toes and pressing a lingering kiss to her jaw. She definitely doesn't notice Natasha's sharp smirk afterward (it shows up every time) or she might do it more often.

**10:** Neck Kiss

They wake up in the same bed now, have been for a while. Neither woman minds very much, and although they usually drift apart during the night, they are quick to come together again in the morning light. Natasha almost always seems alert, and Evelynn had to admit that had jarred her a bit in the early days. But as the redhead seemed content to pull the other close and wait until Evelynn was more coherent, she let it pass. She wakes this morning with a soft yawn. She can feel Natasha's chest, beneath her ear, rise and fall with a soft chuckle. She raise her head just enough to slide a soft kiss across the skin of Natasha's throat and settles back down.

**11:** Collarbone Kiss

Now, it's not like she does this all the time, see. It's not like she can't let Evelynn go out of the house without something marking her as Natasha's (even though, really, she can't let her go without Natasha's scarf or coat or gloves or her shirt or, hell, her _keychain_). But, well, with a girlfriend like Evelynn, especially one who leaves the country for months on end for work without any form of contact and whom _she_ then has to leave for the same reason-well, it's understandable that Natasha might get a bit…anxious. Not too much, you see, just enough that she'll leave a scarf of her own out on cold mornings when she has to get up and leave for India or China or Moscow or where-the-fuck-ever or silently lets Evelynn confuse their clothing so she can see the Asian walk out the door in _her _jacket. But there's a method to Natasha's madness (Honestly. Don't listen to what Tony and Clint say). If she doesn't make her presence in Evelynn's life known, somebody's going to take notice of those curves and that long-ass hair and that sparking intellect that leaves people gasping and _take her away from Natasha_. And that _cannot_ be allowed. And it's not like Evelynn seems to mind all that much, so Natasha doesn't feel too badly about herself when she skims her lips over the arch of the other woman's collarbone and decides to introduce her teeth into it. In fact, by the noises sounding in Natasha's ears as she sucks in a mouthful of flesh and lets her tongue flick lazily over it, she rather thinks Evelynn enjoys it. (Alright, so Natasha's a possessive bitch. At least she has the guts to admit it.)

**12:** Chest Kiss

It's not often that Evelynn gets to wake up comfortably. Usually, she will open her eyes to see Natasha slipping on her suit to do battle with the newest super villain at a time when it should really be illegal to be awake, or she herself is called out by SHIELD for a mission or Tony is banging around in his room with little to no regard for others' personal needs or Bruce has accidentally Hulked out again or something to that effect. So this day, when she cracks an eye open to glance at her redheaded counterpart, sleeping peacefully beside her, Evelynn is very much content to press a gentle kiss to Natasha's chest, right over her heart. She settles down against the other's chest, happy to just lie here all morning and listen to the steady beating of her heart.

**13:** Stomach Kiss

Evelynn has more scars than Natasha would have originally believed. She's found a total of twenty-six so far, ranging from a small, needle thin pinprick, to a slashing of scar tissue stretching the length of one of her ribs. Logically, of course, Natasha knows that these came before the changes to Evelynn's genetic makeup. But there's one that, to use one of Clint's phrases, makes the Russian woman 'lose her shit'. It's not so much the raised tissue along the skin of Evelynn's abdomen that does it (she's seen too much violence and blood and gore to be phased by scars) as it is the story behind it. Evelynn's only whispered it in her ear once, and she knows better than to think that the Asian woman will ever tell it again. "It came," she muttered in the dark the night Natasha had rucked her shirt up for the first time and touched the marred skin with a questioning look, "from what you would call a Caesarean section in this dimension. I'd rather not speak of it." But speak of it she did, albeit briefly the next morning, hunching her shoulders up around her ears and refusing to be touched all the time she spoke. "They wanted to see if they could recreate me," she said in a voice devoid of all emotion. "Genetically, I mean. If my genes were the things that made me indestructible, what were the chances of a baby related to me being the same way? They were so _sure _the healing genes were on the X chromosome, they never thought to wonder what the Y chromosomes would do when combining to make a fetus." Natasha is brave enough now to admit that that morning she believed she would get sick if Evelynn continued. But go on she did, looking up with cold, dead eyes. "They only injected the sperm of course-couldn't risk any emotional attachment to the father, or any damage to the mother in case of rape. My baby," Evelynn says for the first (and most likely, the last) time, "was a boy. He was a beautiful baby boy. And he was mortal. They murdered him once they found he didn't have my abilities. They didn't have anything to test on him, so why bother keeping an infant who had no use? I never even got to think of a name for him." So now, every time Natasha is slithering down the length of Evelynn's body while in bed, or pressing her up against a wall and rememorizing her body after a long mission, she makes sure to press a line of kisses (tender, always so tender, she knows she's irrational but she can't stand to remember the pain behind the scar) down Evelynn's stomach in memoriam.

**14:** Kiss Along the Hips

Natasha has to admit, she might have a thing for Evelynn's hips. But how can she not, really? It's those _goddamn hipbones_. They're sharp, creating a valley between them and simply delicious to see when the edge of Evelynn's shirt rides up just that tiny bit. Especially now, in the summer, when Evelynn goes around wearing those shear tank tops and shorts small enough Natasha might think she didn't have any on. (Never out in public, of course, Evelynn's much too proper for that. She'll force herself to suffer through jeans and long skirts in the heat just for the sake of propriety.) But the best part of Evelynn's hipbones in the summer, Natasha reflects, on her knees in the kitchen with the Asian woman in question pressed up against the marble island in the middle of the room, is the fact that when sleeping, she doesn't wear _any pants at all_. And if that isn't a blatant invitation to skim her lips across her waist and head lower, eyes on the other's face (reddened and gasping and so damn _beautiful_ her heart clenches in her chest), well, Natasha doesn't know what is.

**15:** Kiss in the Rain

Natasha didn't understand; Evelynn thought she had _died_. There was no contact between them for days at the end of the last mission the assassin had and then that news report had said the building she was staying in was mysteriously attack, everyone inside killed… Well, the Asian hadn't known what to think. She was scared, legitimately terrified for the first time since coming into this dimension. And when the Russian woman calls from a taxi on the way to Stark Tower, saying everything was fine, the mission went off without a hitch- well, suffice to say Evelynn hasn't known real relief until then. She is physically weak, the phone fumbling between her fingers, knees going out so hard and fast she is lucky there is a chair behind her at the time. As soon as Natasha hangs up, Evelynn slams the phone down and sprints out into the street, in time to see the yellow car tear away from the curb, driver probably intent on getting home and away from the storm raging around them. Thunder crashes overhead and then lightning lights up the world and she sees it flash off red locks and inside green eyes and she throws herself into the Russian's arms. The other woman stumbles back a bit, caught a bit off balance, before her training reflexively kicks in and she steadies them. Evelynn honestly can't care less if they end up on the pavement, she's too busy wrapping one arm around Natasha's shoulders and twining her fingers in that coppery, wet hair. Rain slamming down on her back, Evelynn shoves their mouths together. She tries vainly to put all the emotions she has felt this past month into it. She doesn't know if she gets the message across quite correctly, but Natasha slips an arm around her hips and presses soft, comforting lips back against Evelynn's so there's a chance she might have understood.

**16:** Upside-Down Kiss

Evelynn has this habit. Natasha has noticed her doing this from time to time, but figures it's so small Evelynn herself has yet to realize it. She'll wait until they're home after a fight with that week's big bad before showing (serious) signs of exhaustion. Evelynn usually wears two layers of clothing, in case of fires or tears, and now she usually strips off her top shirt and falls back on the sofa. She leans her head back and always gives a soft sigh. It's…cute, Natasha thinks, and watches as Evelynn preforms all these actions to a T. Then, quietly, she walks over, leans down, and presses their mouths together over the back of the couch. It's a strange angle, and not much pleasure on both sides is derived from it, but it's comforting, and that's all they really need.

**17:** Goofy Kiss

Her relationship with Natasha, Evelynn considers, is not a light one. They are both simply too damaged for it to be. She takes most things in this world very, very seriously (too seriously, Clint would say, but Evelynn doesn't know the meaning of the words), and she suspects that Natasha knows how she feels. So when they are together, Evelynn doesn't try to break the tension that crackles with so much electricity they might as well be standing in the middle of Tony's lab. Not usually, at least; it's not something that would be welcomed kindly by the assassin on a regular basis, Evelynn fears. So no, there aren't many inside jokes or much playful batter between them, but Evelynn can't resist slipping a sweet kiss to the tips of Natasha's fingers every so often if she keeps making that face. It's _hilarious._

**18:** Underwater Kiss

Panic rushes through her system, giving her the energy to delve deeper and deeper and deeper still, striving to reach that faint red glint. Weeds and fish slip past Evelynn's skin, and her lungs feel fit to bust, but she can't give up, she just _can't_. She knows what'll happen if she does; she won't ever be happy again, nothing will ever be the same, because Natasha will die. So when her fingers, cold and unfeeling, clamp down of a hard forearm, she pulls and shoves until she can see Natasha's face. Slipping close, Evelynn slants her mouth over the redhead's and breathes out her breath into the other's mouth. It's only when she's clamped a hand down on the other's nose and felt her lungs expand to take in the new air, felt eyelashes flutter against her skin, that Evelynn lets a slow trickle of hope to burn through her.

**19:** Forceful Kiss

They don't fight often, Natasha reflects only slightly bitterly, and that might be the reason as to why it's so hard for her to restrain her frustration, her fury. But Evelynn could have gotten herself _killed_, really killed this time. As in, never-ever-coming-back, say-goodbye-to-the-only-one-you've-ever-loved killed. And, apparently, the Asian woman had hardly cared. But when Natasha reveals all this, that she would never know how to deal with her girlfriend's demise, Evelynn goes strangely silent for a moment. And then, just like that, she's gone, sprinting out the door and into the street with a "Well then I guess I'll take the problem off your hands," hanging in her wake. But Natasha was never one to give up a fight, and, let's face it, she's much faster than her younger, smaller counterpart. She takes the stairs two at a time and catches Evelynn just outside their home. She spins the younger around, locks her arms to her sides and bends down, practically forcing their eyes to meet. It says something that Evelynn relaxes slightly, but they both keep their eyes open in the kiss. They'll both watch and be witness to what happens now, for better or worse, no excuses. The pressure is hard, unforgiving and more than a little punishing, but she can't seem to stop. It's almost like a metaphor for their relationship, Natasha thinks hazily, and the fear and guilt that shiver through her at that have her trying desperately to soften the kiss.


End file.
